Paradise Lost

A long time ago in what seems like a galaxy far far away I was privileged to run for Congress. Having received the Republican nomination in the 3rd Congressional District of West Virginia in 1994 I was further privileged to be part of the "Contract for America" class of Congressional nominees that gathered on the west side of the Capitol six weeks before election day. (Yes, that's me on the cover of the book standing a few feet to the left of Newt).

Before the candidates filed out of the basement and on stage to witness the epochal address by the soon to be Speaker of the House, we all met with the then Minority leadership. The Deputy Minority Whip, Minority Whip and Minority Leader all addressed us and urged us to work hard in the coming weeks so that we could sweep the Democrats out of office and take the reins of power that had been wrongfully denied us for lo these many years. We were read the text of the Contract and given guidance on how best to use it to define the waning days of the campaign.

Having espoused Newt's specific flavor of Republican ideology in our Districts on the campaign trail for many months, we all knew the Contract's main tenets: limited government, greater individual responsibility, more individual freedom, higher standards of responsibility for elected leaders; balanced budgets, term limits for Committee Chairman, etcetera.

After the speeches we were invited to ask any questions of the leadership. One of the candidates sitting across the room and asked why it was that since we had been talking about term limits for the Democrats, the Contract didn't include Congressional Term Limits that would apply to the new Congress. One by one the leaders moon-walked that issue to the increasing discomfort of the assembled bright-eyed-bushy-tailed "we're in this to save the country" candidates.

At the conclusion of Dick Armey's response (which, in a nutshell, was: You don't really want us to leave so soon after finally winning the majority, do you?"), a candidate from North Carolina turned to me and said quietly "It's already over."

He had sensed the pivotal moment in the Gingrich Revolution - that being the beginning of the end.

The elections that would mark the triumphant return of Newt Gingrich and the Republican Party to Washington were still weeks away and yet the seeds of the public's later disgust and repudiation of the same Party were already sown.

Hypocrisy in politics is as old as the profession itself and few insiders are surprised hear it practiced with impunity. Indeed, Rochefaucauld's maxim "hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue" seems to be the motto of Washingtonians on both sides of the aisle.

But in the hinterlands where Ma and Pa Kettle work for a living, pay taxes and take their quadrennial electoral duties seriously, a broken promise is extremely caustic to the bond made between voter and officeholder -- especially when the candidate has promised to be "different than the rest" and bring "change to the way we do business in Washington."

Such is the crack in the until now perfect record of the Obama phenomenon.

Yesterday, the President's choice for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was confirmed by the Senate in spite of having admitted to what most laymen understand as "cheating on your taxes."

His admission was further compounded by the revelation that even after discovering what he calls a "careless" error he didn't pay the Treasury all of the back taxes until it was clear that he would be the nominee for Treasury Secretary.

With the facts as we know them, there are only two judgments to be made about this man:

1) he is not sophisticated enough to understand that he owed these taxes - even after receiving this money in advance from the IMF for the sole purpose of paying these taxes and signing disclosure forms saying that he would turn these funds over to the IRS; or

2) He cheated on his taxes and figured that he wouldn't get caught.

Geithner's explanation that he was careless might be believable to some (not this author) but still lands him in category 1.

In neither case is he fit to hold the office of Secretary of Treasury - an office charged with supervision of the IRS and management of the country's financial resources.

Perhaps Secretary of Education or Transportation, or Energy; but once the job entails any amount of financial responsibility, one has to wonder whether or not in this country of 300 million another talented individual can be found.

Remember Zoe Baird? Clinton's first nominee for Attorney General. Talented and qualified, she was forced to withdraw her name from nomination because she had failed to pay taxes to illegal aliens she hired as domestic help.

Even Bill Clinton - the man who wrote the book on powering your way through public difficulties - recognized the hypocrisy of putting a woman in the office of Attorney General who had willfully broken the law.

This brings us back to Rochefaucault.

President Obama faced his first litmus test when he was told the news about Geithner. Since I wasn't there, I can't pretend to know what exactly was said, but since I worked in the Office of Presidential Personnel and went through the vetting process with other candidates I am fairly certain that in the discussions surrounding the nomination, someone on Obama's staff recommended that Geithner be ditched. It probably went something like this:

"Mr. President, how is it going to look for you to have promised change and then we have to go to the mat on Capitol Hill to get a TAX CHEAT nominated? Why doesn't he do the right thing like Bill Richardson and withdraw so we can find someone who took their tax returns to H&R Block?"

My other guess is that the Chief of Staff, and the others weighing in on this, recommended that the President not back down and that to give in on such a small matter would be politically damaging. They would have rightfully pointed out that in a few weeks, Geithner's nomination would be old news.

The problem for Obama is that now the bloom is off the rose.

Not for millions of his adoring fans and supporters. The true believers will remain just that for many more Timothy Geithners.

And not for the loyal opposition. They are just that - loyally opposed to Obama no matter what he'll do.

The problem is for the spongy middle of America. Those Republicans and Democrats who rejected Hillary in the primaries and McCain in the general election to support a man they truly thought would change the way things were being done in Washington.

A man who they hoped would put principle over politics.

Obama had the choice between what was morally and ethically right and what he could get away with and chose the latter.

To quote my North Carolinian prognosticator: "It's already over."